


Of Boxes Blue (Bees on Fire)

by Matrya



Series: Newly Classic Who [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, the TARDIS as a character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 04:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matrya/pseuds/Matrya
Summary: Until Donna, the TARDIS never had a second friend.





	Of Boxes Blue (Bees on Fire)

**Author's Note:**

> Written November 2009. Not edited for content.

The TARDIS has a name. She told the Doctor once, but he only whispers it like a secret when no one else can hear.

She likes that, their secret, their privacy, something special and unbreakable.

In return, he once told her his name. She uses it when the light is dim and he looks weary.

The assistants, they all have names. The TARDIS liked Romanadvoratrelundar best; it is the name that feels most natural in the skin that feels the most natural. She liked most of them though, especially the ones who talk to her.

Until Donna comes, though, she never has a second friend. She has the Doctor and the Doctor has his assistants. Donna, though, is the one who talks to her and who listens back. Donna is the TARDIS's second friend.

The TARDIS tells Donna about Gallifrey, about the Doctor, about other assistants, about the universe. Donna listens, she is kind and enthusiastic about her new life; she is exuberant about being in the TARDIS and sharing days with the otherwordly.

Talking to Donna is an adventure where she gets to tell her knowledge, of the sad and sanguine times of yore, of girls and boys from Earth and elsewhere. The Doctor thinks he is clever but the TARDIS knows she is moreso; Donna knows it, too.

When there comes a glitch on the time spectrum, the TARDIS is so excited: she gets to keep Donna and then the others all come back. She gets to see Sarah and Rose, Jack and Mickey, Martha and Jackie. She gets a second Doctor and she gets a Donna that can talk to her as infinitely as the TARDIS herself can talk to Donna.

He ruins everything, though. He sees her happy and engaged, sees her with other friends and in-jokes about string and WIMPs, and he gets so jealous that everyone is gone.

The new Doctor - with his single heart and rapid cellular degeneration -, Jackie, Mickey and the same-different Rose are left in the dark world with the shining shapes in the distance which move forward like death and Hell.

Her Doctor scares Jack and Martha into the bright and awful, with the twirling rays and snapping maws. He sends Sarah back to normality with her un-normal son and that scent of mechanical familiarity and those scream-cry-moans in the near-far-off.

He sends them all away from her in revenge for her love and when it is only Donna-new Donna left, he takes her away like neither woman wants. She is suddenly not there; her skin and hair and clothes are inside the TARDIS, but there is none of the Donna she knows and loves. She tries to bring it back, funnel it through and into Donna, but she can only manage snippets and bits.

Then the Doctor leaves, he takes Donna. When he comes back, it is raining and he has no Donna. He has taken her back, to a place where there is no future.

Then, there is a spark, a shape in the distance. A concept or idea of continuation. The TARDIS revs.


End file.
